Elyot, Thomas (1490?-1546)The castell of helth corrected and in some places augmented, by the first author therof, sir Thomas Elyot knight, the yere of our lorde 1541. [Elyot's Castle of Health]. Imprinted at London in fletestrete in the house of Thomas Berthelet. Cum priuilegio ad imprimendum solum. 1550 - Small octavo; [4](of 7), 73, 68-90 leaves (i.e.198pp). Bound in recent full vellum with gilt-lettered red morocco spine label and gilt-lettered date direct to foot of spine; endpapers contemporaneous with binding; lacks first three printed leaves (title-page and first 2 leaves of 'The Proheme'), with good period paper facsimile of title-page loosely inserted; contemporary inscription at foot of final page of 'The Proheme' obliterated with ink cross-hatching in an early hand, very small library stamp on front free endpaper, otherwise a clean copy with a few decorative capitals and very occasional early ink marginalia. Berthelet's colophon is undated in this edition, and though the date '1542' has been added to the colophon in an early hand, ESTC puts the date at 1550. Rare early example of Elyot's pocket manual to health and diet which despite its missing three leaves remains a delight. ESTC S121123, citing just 6xUS and 2xUK copies (British Library and Glasgow University Library). [Attributes: Hard Cover]

Alberti, Leandro.Descrittione di tutta l'Italia & isole pertinenti ad essa. Early, expanded edition, following the first of 1550: An important and widely read account of Italy, written by a Dominican monk and Bolognese scholar who spoke at length about his home city in addition to the other major regions of the country. The Catholic Encyclopedia (1917) online notes that the work contains "many valuable topographical and archaeological observations." Nicely printed in italic type (without maps), the work has a good index. The separate title-page of vol. II gives Isole appartenenti alla Italia, dated 1576. Venice is treated here, as an island, not as part of "the mainland."

Bible. N.T. Greek. 1550.Tes Kaines Diathekes hapanta ... Novum Iesu Christi D.N. Testamentum. Lutetiae: Ex Officina Roberti Stephani Tall folio (34 cm; 13.25"). [16] ff., 272, 202 pp., [1] f.. 1550 Robert Estienne's 1550 edition, his third edition of the New Testament in Greek, established the textus receptus for subsequent editors. His documentation of collations of fifteen manuscripts (including the Codex Bezae) resulted in the first critical apparatus for an edition of the Bible" (Pelikan). In addition to being a major scholarly achievement, Estienne's work is universally hailed for its typographic beauty: It is printed in the largest of the three fonts of Greek type that Claude Garamond designed, the famous Royal Greek type — the grecs du roi that Robert Estienne ordered on behalf of King Francis I of France. Their design was based on the handwriting of the Cretan copyist Angelo Vergecio. => This is the very first use of this largest size of the Garamond Royal Greek type. Adding to the visual beauty of the typography and aiding the reader in navigating the text is the printer's use of two sizes of foliated and grotesque Greek initials, headpieces of similar design, and a divisional title-page for the second section that begins with the Epistles of Paul. As previously mentioned, the volume offers critical apparatus: This is printed in the inner margin of the text and gives variant readings and additions from manuscripts that Estienne had consulted for collating against the printed text; and the outer margin contains references and the ordinary chapter-numbers and division-letters, A, B, etc. Two versions of => the Estienne printer's device are used in the work: The coiling snake and vine (Schreiber B1) on the main and divisional title-pages and the man standing under an olive tree (Schreiber 10) on the verso of the colophon leaf. Binding: 16th-century red crushed goat (morocco?), round spine, no raised bands, spine richly tooled with an overall, elaborate vine pattern "gilt-extra." The covers have an outer border formed by a triple and single fillet, three of the four tooled in blind and one in gilt, and an inner frame also of a triple and single fillet, but with two in blind and two in gilt; the resulting panel is graced with gilt corner devices and a large gilt center device. All edges gilt and top edge with old ink lettering under the gilt ("Novum Testamentu[m]"). Provenance: The Howell Bible Collection, Pacific School of Religion (properly released). Binding as above, evidence of ties at top, bottom, and fore-edges of boards; a little rubbed. Text with red ruling through p. 43. Occasional light, small stain in upper margin and very occasionally some other spot; perhaps six leaves towards end with old light waterstain across lower outer corner. Very minor worming in some lower margins, not near text. Definitely a very good copy of a => sumptuous book.

MACHIAVELLI, NICCOLO. ( Nicolo Machiavelli ).:I SETTE LIBRI DELL'ARTE DELLA GUERRA, di NICOLO MACHIAVELLI cittadino et secretario fiorentino No place or printer, 1550.. 1550, small 4to, approximately 210 x 145 mm, 8¼ x 5¾ inches, vignette portrait of the author on title page, at the rear are 7 double page plans of battles and encampments, Italian text, pages: 1-185 plus [18] Figura unnumbered, collation: a-aa4, bb6, bound in modern quarter blue morocco over marbled sides, raised bands, gilt motif in compartments and gilt lettering to spine, marbled endpapers and silk marker. Corners very slightly worn, a few pages lightly age-browned, an occasional small pale damp stain to margins. Binding tight and firm. A very good copy. The present work is Part IV of an edition of Machiavelli's writings entitled "Tutte le opere di Nicolo Machiauelli cittadino et secretario fiorentino, divise in 5. parti, et di nuouo con somma accuratezza ristampate", all the volumes of which are dated 1550 on the title page with no place or printer (see Adams M9). Although Adams accepts the date of 1550, others believe that this edition was printed circa 1620 and possibly in Geneva (see Copac, copy held by Warwick University with identical collation). The Art of War (1521), one of only a few works of Machiavelli to be published during his lifetime, is a dialogue set in the Orti Oricellari, a garden in Florence where humanists gathered to discuss philosophy and politics. The principal speaker is Fabrizio Colonna, a professional condottiere and Machiavelli?'s authority on the art of war. The basis for the book is the creation of a modern army. MORE IMAGES ATTACHED TO THIS LISTING, ALL ZOOMABLE. POSTAGE AT COST.

ACCARISI, Alberto (1497-1544)Vocabulario, Grammatica et Ortographia della lingua volgare d’Alberto Acharisio da Cento con ispositioni di molti luoghi di Dante, del Petraca, et del Boccaccio Venice: alla bottega d?'Erasmo di Vicenzo Valgrisio, 1550. Hardcover. Very Good. 4to (205 x 145cm). [viii], 316pp., including errata leaf. Printer?'s mark on title. Wood-engraved initials, some historiated. Italic type. Contemporary vellum; (slightest dampstaining at lower right corner before p.16; lacking ties, otherwise good, clean pages). Ex-Libris stamp of Umberto Banzi, Dottore, to front free endpaper and title. Accarisi?'s seminal work on Italian grammar and vocabulary. A native of Cento, Alberto Accarisi was a well-known Doctor of Law, philologist and one of the first scholars of Italian vocabulary and grammar. This is Accarisi?'s second edition of the Vocabulario; his first was self-published in Cento in 1543. Accarisi was also known for an earlier work on grammar, Grammatica volgare (Bologna: 1536), which was reprinted several times, also in French at Louvain in 1555. The Vocabulario is on par with many of contemporary publications of a similar kind and in particular to the previous two lexical vocabularies - considered the first of the Italian language - that is, the Raccolta di voci del Decamerone of Lucilius Minerbi (1535) and the Vocabulario di cinquemila vocabuli Toschi..... del Furioso, Boccaccio, Petrarcha e Dante by Fabricio Luna (1536). Accarisi?'s Vocabulario encompassed their grammatical, lexical and syntactic problems and it responded to the needs of its dissemination, which had been indirectly suggested by Pietro Bembo to his followers. Accarisi believed a given language is of utmost important and in his work he clearly distinguishes between poetic language and vocabulary prose without artificiality. The Vocabulario procured examples presented by Boccaccio, Petrarch and Dante.

CHAUCER, Geoffrey.The Workes of Geffray Chaucer newly printed, London: [Nicholas Hill] for Wyllyam Bonham,, [1550?]. with dyvers workes whiche were never in print before. Folio (286 × 178 mm). Late 19th-century full grosgrain morocco in antique style by Hayes of Oxford, tooled in blind and decorated in gilt, marbled endpapers, wide turn-ins richly gilt, gilt edges. Housed in a morocco-backed folding case. Printed in black letter in two columns. Title page and separate title for "Romaunt of the Rose" within decorative border, woodcut of the Knight on B1r, woodcut of the Squire on E6v, woodcut initials throughout. Provenance: John Hawes (contemporary ownership inscription inked to title and colophon); Thomas A. Hendricks of Indianapolis (bookplate); Rosenbach Collection (typed label on printed header); Sylvain Brunschwig (morocco bookplate); Paul Peralta-Ramos (small Japanese-style inkstamp); the collection of Cornelia Funke, author of the Inkheart trilogy. Joints tender, lacking final blank, mild browning, dampstaining to first gathering and to margins of last gathering, head of B1 shaved just touching foliation, tear to f. 90 affecting a few letters of text, pen-trials to outer margin of f. 227, discreet ink doodles to woodcut of Knight, "Squier" inked to scroll on woodcut of same, last leaf coming away at head, overall a very good copy. Fourth collected edition, one of four variants each with a different publisher's name in the colophon: the others were Richard Kele, Thomas Petit, and Robert Toye. Pforzheimer notes that, to judge from the relative numbers of extant copies, it is probable that they shared equally in the edition. The woodcuts of the pilgrims that had first been printed in Caxton's 1483 edition are here replaced by two new cuts, of The Knight and The Squire, which were then reprinted in later black letter editions through to 1602. The history of the woodcuts is traced by David R. Carlson, "Woodcut Illustrations of the Canterbury Tales, 1482?-1602," The Library, 6th ser., 19 (1997): 25?-67.

GORDON, Bernard deOpus Lilium medicinae inscriptum, de morborum prope omnium curatione. Apud Gulielmum Rouillium, London 1550 - MEDICAL TREATMENTS IN MEDIEVAL TIMES WITH EXTENSIVE ANNOTATIONS 8vo. pp. 910 (i.e. 920), (xvi). a-z8, A-Z8, 2a-2l8, 2m4, *8. Roman and Italic letter, Rouille&#146;s woodcut eagle and serpent device on title, white on black woodcut crible and historiated initials, "Ex biblioth. D. Brix de Wahlberg architat, Furstenberg" at head of title (Bonifacius Brix de Walhberg doctor to the Furstenberg family), Joh. Jac Hertebach (&#145;and friends&#146; in Greek) 1622 with price, and, "Ex libris Michaelis Capits Medici ** 1680," beneath, "Georgius ** **" crossed out in earlier hand beneath, extensive marginal annotations throughout in a near contemporary hand, further notes and references on fly leaves and table. Light age yellowing, very light marginal waterstain on a few leaves, the occasional mark or spot, small single worm hole in last section of work. A very good copy, crisp and clean, in contemporary pigskin over bevelled wooden boards, covers triple blind ruled to a panel design, outer panel of upper cover filled with blind roll of biblical figures, central panel with blind acorn tools, lower cover with blind saints roll in outer and central panels, remains of clasps, brass catches, spine with three raised bands ruled in blind. The wooden boards have expanded vertically over time pushing through the upper and lower edges, covers rubbed. A most interesting copy, heavily annotated in an early hand, of this compilation of texts by the Montpellier physician Bernard de Gordon, including his most famous Lilium medicinae and five other shorter treatises. One on prognostication illustrates the importance of astrology and especially the concern of earlier physicians to predict the course of an illness. An encyclopedia of diseases with their symptoms, causes, effects, and treatments, the Lilium gained wide circulation in scores of manuscripts, in translations from Latin into French, Hebrew, Irish, and Spanish and, from 1480 on, in a dozen printed editions. It was cited for three centuries, as an authoritative text on ailments ranging from headache to gout, from epilepsy to leprosy, from insanity to impotence. Bernard de Gordon flourished in the late Middle Ages in the era when university education first evolved in the training of European physicians. Fragmentary details of his life and medical influence are known from seven books, particularly his extensive text Lilium Medicine and from Chaucer's reference to him in the Canterbury Tales. Chaucer lists Bernard de Gordon as one whose writings were part of the core curriculum of the best-trained European doctors of medieval Europe. He was one of that small group of medieval physicians who reverently followed Galenic lore which had endured for a thousand years yet who began to challenge its details and to experiment clinically with new methods of treatment. In his writings, Bernard de Gordon made the first reference to spectacles and to the hernial truss. His writings also contained detailed desiderata for the ethical best practice of medicine of his day, extending the principles of both Hippocrates and Haly ibn Abbas. Unlike many of the surviving writings of other medieval medical teachers, his texts have within them a tone of humility and acknowledged fallibility. A most interesting copy having belonged to a series of physicians until the eighteenth century, one of whom made extensive notes. Gordon&#146;s origins are a matter of contention. Initially held to be Scottish, a French origin has been claimed and Italian inferred. BM STC Fr. C16th. Adams G 871. Durling 542. Baudrier IX 169. Wellcome 1 801. Shaaber G352. Latin [Attributes: Hard Cover]